A new playground 'tongue piercing' craze has led to three children ending up in hospital in three weeks.

Now parents are being warned over fears that the craze has the potential to kill.

The craze sees youngsters try to mimic having a tongue piercing with magnetic ball bearings, which have been said to stick to each other through loops of gastrointestinal tract and could cause bowel perforation or intestinal blockage.

Sanja Besarovic, a consultant paediatric surgeon at Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, said an influx of young people are taking part in a new 'body piercing' fad.

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She has written to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents to describe her "growing concern" about the growing casualties who have fallen victim to the craze, the Hull Daily Mail reports.

Ms Besarovic, who is known to patients as Miss B, said she has seen three cases in the past three months alone.

Earlier this month, Freddie Webster, 12, had to have ten centimetres of his bowel removed in a lifesaving operation at Hull Royal Infirmary after swallowing magnetic ball bearings which ripped a hole through his stomach.